


Lights that warm (these things that return)

by maharetr



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Femslash, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:11:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/pseuds/maharetr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We are so sorry for your loss, ma’am,” the Staff Sargent says. “Is there someone home with you, or someone you can call?”</p><p>"I... yes," Jolene says. "Yes, there is."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights that warm (these things that return)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saekhwa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekhwa/gifts).



The knock at the door wakes her, not from a dream exactly, but from deep enough sleep that she's utterly befuddled for a moment until the knock comes again, and she can orient herself enough with couch and living room and home.

There are two Army guys in A-class uniform standing on her doorstep. That's... not immediately enough to make her panic, but then the younger of the two, the Staff Sargent, his gaze flicks down to the bump, and he flinches, minutely.

 _Not like Honduras,_ she has time to think, and she turns to the Captain, looking for hope.

"Are you Mrs. Jolene Porteous?"

His eyes are pale blue, and there is nothing in his expression but reluctance.

The world lurches under her feet, and she grabs the doorframe.

“I am.” He is steady, she could be steady too.

“May we come in, ma’am?” he asks.

“No,” she says, not realizing she was going to say it until it was done. “No, you may not.” There is terror in her stomach, fluttering up into her chest.

He nods, once, and straightens his shoulders slightly.

"The Secretary of the Army has asked me to offer his deepest condolences –.”

“Oh god.” She is going to scream. It is building in her chest, and she holds her hand to her throat to try and force it down. “Oh god, stop.” He does, and that's worse.

"How'd it happen?" It comes out perfectly steady, and she's not sure how that's possible. 

“Ma’am –“

“ _Tell me how it happened_.” She wasn’t aware she was going to say any of this.

“It was a helicopter accident, ma’am. That’s all we know at this time.”

“Oh,” Jolene says. She’s not sure how to visualise that, but it's important to be polite to guests, and she can do that. “Thank you,” she says. “Was…were any of the others hurt?”

It’s the Captain’s turn to flinch minutely. “The next of kins are being appropriately notified, ma’am,” he says.

“Oh,” she says again. She’s been around neutral, bland military-speak for long enough to know what that means. “Oh my god.” The scream is gone. The fluttering panic in her chest is gone. There is just a cold shaking somewhere in her belly. She wonders what it feels like for the baby. “Thank you,” she says again. “Thank you for coming out.”

She steps back, preparing to close the door. 

“We are so sorry for your loss, ma’am,” the Staff Sargent says. “Is there someone home with you, or someone you can call?”

"I... yes," Jolene says. "Yes there is. Thank you." She closes the door in their faces. 

She walks down the hall and into the kitchen. She’s aiming for the kitchen table, reaching for the back of a chair, but her legs go.

Her knees hit the floor and her palms smack down on the linoleum, and she’s curling up as best she can around the bump. Pooch called it the bump, and the scream is back. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

Up on the table, her phone buzzes, vibrating busily. It’s Jennifer, Jolene knows, but she can’t. She can’t speak, with this silent scream shredding her throat. She can’t make her fingers work, she can’t...

The phone vibrates for some time, and then stills. There’s whole seconds of silence before the landline stars ringing on the wall, much louder and authoritative, echoing off the tiles. The landline is next to the fridge, high up on the wall.

 _If you can stand up, you’re okay_. It’s Pooch’s voice in her head, and she opens her mouth again.

“I’m not,” she moans. “I’m not okay, baby.” 

She can make it to all fours and sways there while the baby shifts and settles, until she thinks she can crawl. The landline is still ringing, stridently, like an alarm. She crawls for the table instead.

The landline rings out and silence cuts in as Jolene gets up onto her knees and gets her sightline higher than the tabletop. She doesn’t realise how hard she’s shaking until she tries to get her hands to close around the phone. Then It starts buzzing again, and the answer button is big and green and she can do that.

“— better not be slitting your wrists. Pick up the damn – Jolene?”

Jolene sits down hard, her butt thumping to the floor. It hurts, and that – of all the goddamn stupid things – is enough to make her vision swim.

“Jenn,” she says, and it comes out as a croak. She can hear Beth crying in the background.

“Jo. Oh, Jo, they –.” Jennifer’s voice cracks. “Those fuckers,” Jenn says, and Jolene isn’t sure which specific fuckers they’re talking about, but…

“Yeah,” she says. She tries to say something else, but suddenly her throat is all closed up, and her nose is clogged and all there’s space for is the crying.

~*~

The Casualty Assistance Officer calls the landline three hours later. By then Jolene is sitting at the table. It had been sunny in the kitchen before the knock on the door, and it’s still sunny. It lends an unreality to the situation – Pooch had been dead while she had been eating toast that morning, and she’d eaten her toast just fine. He’d been dead while she slept last night, and she’d slept just fine. He had been killed while she swam laps at the pool, maybe, or maybe while she was in the shower afterwards, and she cannot wrap her head around it. Pooch is still dead, even as she sits here, staring numbly at her hands resting on the table top.

The ringing landline is a hideously loud sound. She is abruptly terrified of picking up. The CAOs seem to be used to that – the man on the other end doesn’t sound put out at all when she finally, finally stands up to answer it.

“Mrs. Porteous?”

Is that still her name? She suddenly has no idea what widows are called, how that works, and it freezes her for a moment.

“I… yes?”

She stretches the cord back to the table, sits down carefully.

“You… you help with the funeral things, don’t you?” She shuffles through junk mail and assorted crap and finally comes up with a notepad. There is the briefest hesitation on the other end.

“We do, ma’am, but in this case… I’m so sorry, but we were unable to recover your husband’s body.”

Jolene stares blankly down at the notepad. She’s reflexively written the man’s name, and then stopped. Hope blooms, painful and confusing, in her chest.

“Doesn’t… doesn’t that mean he’s _missing_ , if you don’t have a body?”

She can hear him riffling through papers. There’s another half-breath pause as he figures what to say. “The reports I have here say it was a mid-air incident, ma’am. I’m to ask if you can come down to Westover this afternoon at sevent – five p.m., to collect his effects.”

“Oh,” she says. She’s written _1700 hrs_ on the notepad, and she stares at it. “I can do that.”

The CAO talks her slowly and patiently through the details of the life insurance; the multitude of forms, and how to file for a dependent minor who isn’t even born yet.

“Ma’am…” he says, after they’re done. “Much of what your husband was doing out there was classified. We may never know exactly what it was, but I feel I should warn you… there were civilian casualties involved with your husband’s death. I’d advise you to avoid the news, and the media, if you can.”

 _Involved_ is such a neutral word, Jolene marvels. “Okay,” she says aloud.

After she hangs up, she drifts around the house, and finds herself in front of her half of the closet. Opening the other side is all but physically impossible, but she can look at her own clothes

 _Dressed_ she thinks, carefully. _Time to get dressed_. She takes down a jacket and matching skirt, a shirt. She’s not even conscious of what she’s putting on before she looks in the mirror to adjust the scarf. 

_Battle uniform_ Pooch grins in her head, and she’s smiling at the memory, as she had so many times in the month he’d been away this time, because it was like any other morning except Pooch was dead.

She closes her eyes, takes a careful sip of air through the pain. She’s just put on her makeup and fuck them, _fuck them all_ if she’s going to let them see her cry. She’s nearly steady enough for lipstick, but Pooch, goddamnit -- _war paint_ , he’d said, and he’d nearly sounded proud of it, somehow, and she does sob then, one ragged crack in the shield, and she wants to curl up on the floor again, right here in the bathroom, and never get up.

But Jenn needs her, just like Jenn needed Jolene to get off the floor and answer the phone. Doing a ramping alone would be a hideous thing. And Beth needs both of them, both her mommy and her auntie. So. Jolene presses her lips together and straightens her scarf.

~*~

She’s driven to this airfield multiple times; seeing Pooch off, bringing him home. The trips had evened out to an equal number of apprehensive fear and jubilant relief. She tries to tell herself that used up all her emotions on those trips, that feeling utterly numb was normal. It nearly works. 

Jenn is there already, standing by her car. She’s got her arms crossed protectively around Beth’s shoulders, but somewhere between finding a parking spot and pulling into it, Beth has made a break for it; Jolene has sixty pounds of eight-year-old sprinting towards her even as she pivots out of the car.

Beth crashes against Jolene’s legs and clings tight.

“Hey, sweetie,” Jolene croons, stroking her hair. “it’s okay, sweetie.” It’s a lie, as effortless as it is meaningless.

Jenn isn’t far behind. Jolene looks up, meets Jenn’s gaze, and there’s no way for either of them to lie in that moment. For a moment, Jolene can’t speak. Jenn helps her up, automatically, reflexively. Jolene shifts Beth around cling against her hip, and Jenn steps in, and they fit together perfectly, even with Jolene’s belly. Jenn is steady, feet braced, her breathing calm, and Jolene allows herself to give Jenn some of her weight, allows Jenn to take it.

There’s nothing to say, nothing they _can_ say, when they pull apart. They look at each other, wordlessly, and Jolene brushes a stray hair away from Jenn’s temple. Jenn nods, once, and they turn together towards the hanger. 

The soldiers at the door are familiar. She doesn’t know their names, hasn’t held their name patches in her mind, but they’ve been there to farewell, and there to greet, and this staring at rigid attention is … new. Although, Jolene realises with a sick twist of her guts, this is going to be the last time they’re here. She suddenly, desperately, wants one of them to make eye contact, to nod, to acknowledge her goddamn existence, but Jenn is gently and firmly tugging her forward, and that’s almost certainly for the best.

The hanger is … empty. There are people around, sure, but they’re quiet, and there’s no bustle of activity. Their shoes echo in the space. There are five folded flags on a trestle table, five sets of dog tags. Letting go of Jenn’s hand to approach the them almost makes Jolene panic.

The soldier behind the table picks up a flag and thrusts it out into empty space. He doesn’t change his locked stance as Jolene approaches. Nobody is meeting their fucking eyes.

She stares down at the tags. They’re Pooch’s. They’ve got his vitals stamped in them, but that doesn’t make it real. She picks them up, and the chain slithers through the loop, almost slips free of the tags. She can only see silver.

“Where’s the ring?” she demands. The soldier gives a tiny flinch, but doesn’t break posture. She’s got Pooch’s tags clutched tight her fist now, a familiar shape. They have… they _had_ stress-tested that chain, around Pooch’s neck, pulling him down on top of her. They’d snapped it a few times. 

The soldier keeps staring away off into the middle distance and Jolene backs away from the table. Jenn is a few feet away, stroking Beth’s hair. Jenn’s left her flag on the table, and wrapped Jensen’s tags around her hand like she wants to use them as knuckledusters. The sight nearly, nearly makes Jolene smile. Beth is looking around: quick, darting glances at everything.

“Fu…stuff this,” Jenn mutters as Jolene approaches. “I can’t stand this.” Jolene nods, not sure if she can speak. She follows Jenn outside, tries to straighten her shoulders, match the march Jenn has to her stride, keep her chin up.

“We’ll come home with you,” Jenn says as they emerge into the sunlight, she makes it a statement. “You shouldn’t be alone, and I don’t want to be.”

“Yes,” Jolene says. “Thank you.”

Jenn surveys their cars for a moment , hands on her hips, Jensen’s tags still dangling from her fist. Then she starts digging in her shoulder bag.

“You got a pen?” She unearths a receipt from her purse.

Jolene blinks, but digs up a Bic from the bottom of her shoulder bag. Jenn takes it and marches over to the soldier standing sentry at the hanger entrance.

“You are going to take this,” she says, scribbling on the paper resting in her palm. “And you are going to organise to get my car home, to Jo’s place, here.” She thrusts the note out to him, and _holds_ it out.

“Ma’am, we’re not supposed to leave --.”

“Don’t you _ma’am_ me, Jake’s dead,” Jennifer says. The soldier flinches. “He’s _dead_ , and Jo’s gonna have to raise that baby without Pooch, and the army isn’t going to do shit for us because they’re _embarrassed_. The least you can do is drive my goddamn car home.”

The soldier’s gaze flickers from the middle distance, to Jenn’s face, and down to the extended paper.

“Ma’am,” he says, soft. And he nods, and takes the note.

Jenn nods curtly in return. “Thank you.”

Jolene whistles softly. “ _Damn._ You want to tell me what that’s about?” 

“I am not driving away from here with an empty seat. I –.” Jenn’s voice cracks. “Don’t make me do that.”

The shiver of distress is starting low in Jolene’s stomach again, that cold fluttering. If she gives into it, she’s going to tip over the edge into madness, and she’s going to be no good to anyone, then. _Stress is bad for the baby_ , the obstetrician had told them, and Jolene had given a bark of hysterical laughter. That had been a mistake – the doctor had looked faintly offended, but Pooch had looked _worried_ , and faintly guilty. She’d smacked him upside the head for that, because it wasn’t like she hadn’t known what she was getting into. She wasn’t _stupid_ …

She looks back on six-months-ago self, and wants to shake her. Because she hadn’t known, not really, because there was no being able to understand this, standing in a windy parking lot, utterly alone.

Someone grabs her hand, squeezes hard. “Jolene,” Jenn says, sharply. “Stay here, baby. We need you.”

Jolene blinks, swipes at her eyes with her free hand, and is faintly startled when her fingers come away dry.

“You want me to drive?” Jenn asks, quieter.

Her first inhalation is shaky, but by the third she’s settling it. Her hands are trembling, she realises, in Jenn’s grip.

“Yeah,” she says. “Thanks.” She surrenders the keys, surrenders herself to the back seat, and Beth is right behind her, crowding. Jolene fends her off long enough to get them buckled in, then she lets the girl shiver against her side.

It’s not until they’re driving away that Beth begins to cry. It’s a slow, quiet thing, almost imperceptible from the shaking, except that Jolene can feel the damp slowly spreading into her shirt. Jolene rocks her as best she can, constrained by the seat belts, and the baby-bump.

“You were looking for him,” Jolene says, almost a question in Beth’s ear. “Looking for Uncle Jake?”

Beth’s sob is almost a hiccup, and she nods miserably into Jolene’s side. Jolene squeezes her fiercely.

“Yeah,” Jolene whispers. “It’s okay. I was looking for Pooch, too.”

~*~

They swing through McDonald’s on the way home, because cooking feels impossibly complex, and eating something is better than eating nothing.

 _Eat when you can_. It’s Pooch’s voice in her head again, and crying her way through a Big Mac isn’t quite the lowest point she can remember, but it’s close.  
It takes a long time for Jolene to get out of the car once they’re home, and it’s only a little bit to do with untangling Beth, and manoeuvring with the bump.

“D’you want us to wait out here for a while?” Jenn asks. She nearly manages the smile. “I tried to go to his apartment on the way down here. I couldn’t even get off the damn elevator.”

Jolene takes back the car keys. “It’s okay,” she says, automatically. Then she sees the lawn.

Pooch had methodically checked every sprinkler in the reticulation, checking pressure and valves, because he was going to be gone as she got bigger.. So Pooch had done it this time, and they were never going to quibble about whose job it was again.

Inside the house… inside the house were the faucets he’d fixed, everything below waist height he’d run through in the weeks they’d had together after his deployment notice. There’s the washing machine and the dryer that he’d mounted on wall brackets, because front loaders were a pain in the ass when you couldn’t bend, and when you were doing a hundred loads a day between the two of them, after the baby was born, after _he got back_ …

Going inside would be impossible, had she been alone. She might have stood on the doorstep all night, had she been alone. But there’s Jenn and Beth, and they need somewhere to sleep tonight. She has _houseguests_ , she can rationalize it as that, and the house…

Jolene unlocks the front door and steps inside. The living room is moderately messy, but adequate, for guests. She walks around the house, turning on lights, and that first horrible coming home she focuses on the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, the books scattered around the living room, the crap on the table. Jenn tugs a stumblingly-tired Beth into the house, and then gives up and carries her upstairs to the spare room (sheets on the double bed are clean, but there’s dust on the windowsill. Adequate). Beth’s asleep within minutes – the tiptoeing they do to get back downstairs is barely necessary. Jenn flops down on the sofa and covers her eyes with her forearm.

“What a fucking day.”

Jolene grabs a random bottle of wine from the cabinet, holds it out to Jenn. “You’re getting drunk on my behalf, for both of us.” She hesitates, suddenly. “If you want to.”

Jenn laughs, mirthlessly, and grabs for it as Jolene sits down. She twists the cap off and takes two long gulps. “I’ll get drunk for all three of us.” She rests her head on Jolene’s shoulder, pats Jo’s belly. And Jolene, who has been groped by a hundred strangers since she started to show, finds she doesn’t mind at all. Jolene rests her head against Jenn’s. “And for Beth,” she adds, holding up an imaginary glass. “On behalf of the next twelve years.” 

Jenn chuckles. “You get to be the grownup tonight, if Beth has nightmares.”

Jolene exhales quietly. “I’ll wake you up if you have nightmares, too,” she promises. Jenn grabs Jolene’s hand, squeezes tight.

“How do we do this, Jo?” Jenn whispers. Jolene’s throat tightens again, and god, she is so fucking sick of feeling miserable. And then she feels guilty for feeling angry, and she has to squeeze her eyes closed and take a few deep breaths.

“I don’t know. We…”

She’s been sleeping alone for near on a month now. She’s slept alone for far longer than that. But tonight… tonight is the first night of forever-alone, for real, and the black hole of fear is back, tilting the floor under her. 

She growls in the back of her throat, desperately, and stamps her bare foot on the floorboards. The world steadies, some. 

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” Jolene says. It’s easier to say with her eyes closed. With her eyes closed it’s just the dark, and Jenn curled against her side like she’s always fitted there.

Jenn nods immediately, like she’s expected that. “I’ll wake _you_ up,” Jenn promises. “If you have nightmares too.”

It doesn’t feel like a betrayal. It feels like clinging to a life raft in the middle of a storm, like the pain is dragging her under and she’s choking, breathing in as much water as air. It feels like hold on or drown, and Jolene holds on.

“Thank you,” she whispers. 

Preparing for bed is easy enough: a month alone means the bathroom is mostly hers, with only her things visible. She can dig out a spare toothbrush for Jenn without thinking too hard about the backup bottles of Pooch’s deodorant nearby. She’s prepared for bed alone a thousand times before, and Jenn is a comforting addition beside her.

The bedroom itself, though… she forces herself to look around their – it’s not _their_ bedroom anymore, but that thought hurts so much it’s inhaling water all over again, burning in her chest and choking her – it’s _the_ bedroom, and she can work with _the_ enough to be able to breathe. She’s exhausted enough that even grieving dials down to a steady leak of tears. She digs Pooch’s dogtags out of her pocket and pools them on the nightstand. On the other side of the bed, Jenn’s doing the same with Jensen’s.

“Sore back?” Jenn asks, and Jolene has time to be puzzled before she realises she’s rubbing her own back. The backache has been one of those things – along with the morning sickness and the swollen ankles – she’d filed away as something to suck up while she was alone. “Sit down,” Jenn orders. Jolene perches on the edge of the bed and lets Jenn lay warm, strong hands on her lower back.

“Oh,” Jolene sighs. “Bit lower…” The moan that escapes her is not at all voluntary.

“Good?” Jenn’s grinning. It’s _wonderful_ , not just the tension relief but the being touched. She’s missed this so much, and something between a giggle and a sob bubbles up out of her throat.

“Pooch…” Jolene tries. It might be the first time she’s said his name out loud since the knock at the door. “He would have thought this was hot. He would have been so _peeved_ to have missed this.” 

Jenn chuckles, and that makes it okay that Jolene is shaking with laughter, as well as tears.

Sleep is a long time coming, even with the sleeping pill, even with Jenn curled against her back. Memories float to the surface of her mind, fragmented and disjointed. Memories of Pooch’s smooth head, of running her hands over it, loving the feel of it. Of holding his tags that afternoon. Of the time or two they’d _snapped_ the chain, the surprise between them, the abrasion mark on the back of his neck. The way she’d caught herself admiring it, when she hoped he wasn’t looking. The way she’d caught _him_ admiring it in the mirror the next day. The way they’d talked for a long time about his ring. How he’d convinced her that the whole finger thing was kinda bullshit anyway; that it was closer to his heart on the tags than it ever was with some mythological vein. The abrasion mark on his neck… the chain loose between her fingers… 

“Where _is_ his ring?” She’s not even aware she’s said it out loud until Jenn shifts against her, just as awake.

“Jo,” Jenn murmurs against her neck. “Nothing good’s going to come of that.” She squeezes Jolene’s arm, and they lapse into silence.

“Did.. could it have… melted?” Jenn muses after a while. They’re talking about _things_ , not people, _things_ , and that’s almost okay. The fact that they’re talking in the dark helps.

Jolene dredges up memories of high school chemistry. “The tags are stainless steel, so they would have gone first, I guess, and they’re fine.”

Jenn rests her forehead against the nape of Jolene’s neck. “There – rings are small, I guess. And choppers are big.” Jolene snorts, but Jenn perseveres. “It could have been… thrown clear, I guess, when…” Jenn’s voice hitches suddenly, and she stops.

“Sorry,” Jolene whispers.

Even in the dark, Jolene can’t bring herself to ask out loud.

_Where are their bodies?_

~*~

They sleep, at some point. They must have, because when Jolene opens her eyes there is daylight seeping around the edges of the curtains, and there’s a new shape pressed against her back. The bed isn’t really big enough for three, but Beth has determinedly wiggled in anyway. Jolene cranes her neck, gets enough of a view to see the girl is sucking her thumb, deeply asleep, blonde hair mostly covering her face. Jenn is asleep behind Beth, her arm stretching across her daughter to rest on Jo’s hip.

For a few precious seconds, for whole _breaths_ , the world is okay.

Knowledge, remembrance, seeps into her mind like water again, slowly filling in the gaps, the little moments where she might have smiled that day. Jolene clambers out of bed as carefully as she can. Beth and Jenn stir, then settle again.

She walks steadily for the bathroom, doesn’t try and run. The baby turns, flexes, pressing up, and she throws up almost silently in the sink: the stringy, stinging bile of an empty stomach.

When she straightens up, Jenn is in the doorway. “Morning sickness?” Jenn asks, voice scratchy with sleep. “Would dry toast be of any use?”

Jolene doesn’t want to, but eating for two means that person one has to, so she rinses her mouth and follows Jenn to the kitchen.

~*~

They get a day of privacy, and then the media release the Losers’ names, and never mind unplugging the TV – the media comes to them. They unplug the landline, and stop answering unknown numbers calling their cells. They get damn good at identifying ‘actual sympathetic neighbour bringing flowers or food’ versus ‘reporter carrying same as a cover’. 

The media storm is horrible, but there’s nothing for it but to keep away from the curtains, ply Beth with board games and hunker down and wait… one day, two, three, four days, until it passes. 

Somewhere around day five since the knock at the door, Jolene dares look outside, and there’s no one camped outside. The media has moved on to the next outrage, and Jenn should be driving home, going back to work; Beth should be going back to school. But…

“I’ve got my final doctor’s check-up on Tuesday,” Jolene says one morning, and Jenn just nods, chewing. “What time?” she asks between mouthfuls.

Pooch is everywhere. Pooch is… Pooch _was_ … Jolene tries to correct herself. Pooch _had_... The only thing Pooch _is_ is past-goddamn-tense, and the thought makes her panic inside. Because all she has now are memories: she and Pooch had sat at the kitchen table, talking about everything and nothing, about the baby, about what do to if he doesn’t come back. But those had been _funeral_ plans, and none of them had expected a mid-air goddamn missile attack. (But what about the _ring_? That little thought will not shut up). Did he die at the controls? The thought gives her a tiny measure of comfort, even if she’ll never know.

The first time the baby kicked, that had, blessedly, been Pooch’s. He’d pressed his hand against her stomach and looked even more overwhelmed and awed than she’d felt.

“Oh my god,” he’d whispered. “It’s real. This is really happening.”

She’d laughed. “I could have told you that, dumbass.” But she’d known what he meant. It was impossible to wonder if they were _really_ having a baby when it was booting your hand, or kicking you cheerfully in the bladder, for that matter. She closes her eyes, now, and tries to remember every little detail of his grin in that moment, even though it hurt. She filed it away with the way he made his coffee, the way he whistled tunelessly between his teeth, the way he’d sidle up behind her and kiss her jaw…

She’s making new memories, with Jenn and Beth sitting at their… the… _her_ kitchen table. The first time she feels the tiny muscle spasms through her belly, she freezes, alarmed, her fork half way to her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Jenn looks equally concerned. Jolene rubs her belly, trying to divine the in-utero communications.

“I… he’s not kicking, it’s… does he have a nervous tic?” 

Jenn comes around the table and sits at Jolene’s feet, resting her ear against Jolene’s hand.

“Are we having a neurotic baby?” Jolene’s trying for joking, but can’t stop the thread of anxiousness creeping in.

“God,” Jenn says, a slow grin spreading over her face. “I’d forgotten this bit. He’s got the hiccups. Beth, come and feel this. You did this, it drove me crazy.”

“He’s got the…” The giggles catch her unawares, and she shakes with them, and it feels so good, this wild moment of joy. Jolene’s belly is twitching, twitching, twitching. “Hiccups,” she echoes, still giggling. “Jesus.” 

~*~

The baby is settled now. Or at least, that’s the word the books use. She sure wouldn’t use it – the kid’s _head_ might be settled into her pelvis, but goddamn if he’s still wriggling what feels like all four limbs, and going for the in-utero breaststroke championships against her ribs. Jolene paces restlessly, slowly around... her… the… _their_ (that pronoun slips back in quietly, late enough one night that it may as well be morning. It’s starting to feel okay) bedroom at night, until Jenn gives up on sleep too, curled up on her side under the sheet, watching sleepily.

It’s another tiny glow of warmth against the background of all the pain – the goddamn _ow_ of her ribs, her back, her legs; and the never ending chest-tightening ache of _Pooch_ \-- Jenn’s half-awake smile smooths the edges of the agony, just like Jenn’s hands went to work on her aching muscles.

~*~

 _Don’t read the newspapers. Don’t watch TV._ This was Military Spouses’ Law, advice passed around the message boards or, in Jolene’s case, brutally learned the first time she heard the breaking news about a Special Ops soldier killed in Afghanistan, and spent thirty-six hours nauseated with fear until she was able to hear Pooch’s voice over the phone.

It applies just as brutally ... after. They’d told Beth the TV was broken and plied her with books instead. But Jolene’s standing in the checkout line, pickles and ice cream in her basket (damn anyone who looks sideways at a classic) when she sees the newspaper.

 _Chopper attack_ the headline says, and she gets most of the way through her chuckle before it hurts. It was one of the little jokes between the two of them, that if their military careers felt through the Losers had enough skills together to make it big in any number of underworld gigs. So she’d nudge him when some sort of absurd crime made the news: “you’re driving a getaway V8 in Houston. Nice cornering!” This time he’s stealing a multimillionaire’s van with a helicopter. 

“Very lucrative,” she murmurs approvingly. Then she takes another look at the photos on the front page. It’s not like she can make out many faces in the blurry action shots, it’s just... 

She buys the paper without thinking too hard about it.

~*~

Jenn and Beth are out at the library. Jolene has a whole thirty minutes, if she’s lucky. No one to talk her out of it, or to talk her down, or just look worried that she’s going off the deep end. She dumps the ice cream and pickles into a bowl and arcs up her laptop.

YouTube gives her segments of news reports, gives her tiny scraps of background. Goliath Industries, an international security firm. The hijackers are away scot-free, but there are numbers to call to give any information. YouTube also gives her disjointed cell phone footage: the attack from bad angles, from good angles, just the sound of screaming and gunfire through thick grey smoke. She grabs the least-horrible ones, the ones that show the helicopter, although they’re all freaking focused on the magnet hit, the ones that are steady enough, and she curses the fact that none of them are looking _up_.

It’s the steadiest one, the woman who hunched in the doorway, swearing and yelping but filming, the one that zooms in for the magnet connection, and then back out to the men scrambling around the vehicles, that gives her the unexpected shot. The one that she’s staring at when Jenn and Beth get home.

Jolene hears them come in, hears Beth dump things and head for her room.

“I got you more pickles and --.” Jenn’s stuck her head around the door, and seen the newspaper spread across the desk. Military Spouses Law One, broken, Jo thinks wryly. “Jo?” Jenn is suitably alarmed.

Jolene points at the screen. The white guy at the controls of the Very Big Gun is frozen on her screen, his face a rictus of intense concentration.

“I think Pooch knew this guy,” Jolene says, slowly. She’s getting marginally better at the past tense. “I think this guy knew them.” Jenn peers over her shoulder at the image.

“The… that asshole from the Nicaragua mission?” Jenn says, doubtfully, and all the air whooshes out of Jolene’s lungs in a rush of relief. “It _might_ be that team? I dunno. I only met those guys for about five minutes when I was bringing Jake home. Even if it is him, what’s he doing firing a canon on US soil?”

Jenn settles against the edge of the desk, and Jo doesn’t like the concern in that stance, even in her peripheral vision. She says it out loud, in a rush, anyway.

“I don’t know, but I think the Losers stole something from him. I think they did...” she gestures to the newspaper. “…This.”

“Jo…”

“I mean, seriously,” she’s feeling a thread of crazy panic, that she’s actually crazy. “This is so totally their style. Remember Honduras?”

There’s an unwilling smile trying to quirk Jenn’s lips. “I don’t know anything about Honduras because that’s classified. Nothing at all. Honest.”

Jolene snorts. “Yeah, just like that.”

“Jo…” Jenn says again, softly, and Jolene keeps her gaze fixed on the laptop screen. Her guts are churning in ways that have nothing to do with the baby. “They’re…” Jenn sighs, and rubs her face. “We should clear up the newspaper before Beth sees it,” Jenn says instead, and it feels like a reprieve. 

It’s only a day or so later when Jenn figures out that Jolene has pretty much been living on pickles and ice cream alone and drags her and Beth out to the supermarket.

Beth sneaks a chocolate bar into the cart when Jenn has her back turned, and Jolene lets it slide. When Beth goes for a second one, Jolene nudges the kid, gently.

“One’s enough,” she says, and Beth sighs like the world is against her, but she relents. “Good girl,” Jolene murmurs, aiming for below Jenn’s hearing, and she’s rewarded with a sidways hug around the hips. Jenn’s staring at the shelves, intent enough that she might not have noticed if Jolene had shouted. 

“Sweetie, can you find me the cereal? Something that doesn’t have five different types of nutritious sugar?” Beth goes without complaint, and that almost worries Jo – the kid’s too quiet for her own good. But Jenn is the more immediate concern.

She’s holding a packet of hotdogs, staring blankly at it.

Jo sidles up alongside her, brushes their shoulders together, and waits.

“It’s… he..” Jenn tries, swallows, starts again. “After the… when. After the baby’s born, when we’re settled, and you’re up for it, come with me. Help me clear out his apartment? I can’t… I don’t think I can…”

Jolene blinks. “Yes,” she says. “Of course.”

Jenn leans against her. “That’s one good thing about dying on deployment, I guess.” Jenn sniffs. “They clean out their own damn fridge before they go.” And then Jenn’s crying quietly in the middle of the cooler aisle. It’s Jolene’s turn to take Jenn’s weight, to hold steady until the wave passes. Jolene doesn’t say a word when Jenn dumps two packets of hotdogs into the cart.

Outside the store Jolene leans against the cart while Jenn goes to bring the car around. She aches, and it’s not just her back, and her tight chest isn’t just about reduced lung capacity. Her shirt is damp from Jenn’s tears, and she finds herself touching the patch.

She knows what those tears mean, that Jenn is starting to process. The idea trips the familiar refrain of _but where is the ring?_. Overriding it for once is a little flurry of feelings: not wanting Jenn to leave. _Not wanting to leave Jenn_ , which is a different angle all together. She breathes through the ache.

The fact that Jenn is worried about her is not news. But what if Jenn is right to worry? What… what if obsessing over van-jackings and missing wedding rings just means that she doesn’t have to listen to the tiny voice that is pointing out that Springfield is… Springfield _had_ been a temporary thing, chosen because it was close to the airfield, because Pooch was going to be flying out a lot while he got his career going…

Her thoughts are spiralling, tightening her chest, her gut, hurting, hurting. She shoves the trolley, trying to ground herself in the here and now. Ow, damnit. her thoughts are grounding, but the … _ow_ Oh. She lets go of the trolley, places both hands on her belly. Oh, wow.

Jenn’s pulling up, but by the time she’s out of the car the pain has passed. Jolene stands still, rubbing a hand carefully over the bump, trying to divine if this is It.

“Baby?” Jenn asks, and Jolene has no idea in that moment if she’s asking _her_ a question or asking about the bump.

“Maybe,” Jo says, distantly, still looking down.

“Okay,” Jenn says, and she sounds amazingly calm. “I’ve got the shopping, go sit in the car.” Walking, sitting down, getting her belt on, it all feels normal again, enough that she starts wondering she imagined it.

“Auntie Jo?” Beth is peering around from the back seat. “Is it coming? Does this mean I get a cousin soon?”

Jolene laughs, weakly. “I don’t know, and yeah, you do.” Beth solemnly slips her hand between the seats, and Jolene squeezes it.

There are no contractions on the way home at all, until she’s pivoting around to get out of the car, and _damn_. She hunches forward, manages a chuckle between steady, thoughtful breaths. “You stop me in my tracks, kid,” she whispers to the bump. “Just like your daddy.” And she swipes at her cheeks as she straightens.

“Bad?” Jenn asks as they manoeuvre her up.

“Not yet,” Jolene says wryly.

The plan has been to send Beth to Jolene’s neighbour’s place. But Beth bites her lip, silently again, much too silent, and Jolene can practically see the ‘leaving me’ fear flash across the girl’s eyes. So they compromise and plug the antenna cable back into the TV. A newscaster is talking about gang warfare – drugs and shootings on the docks in LA, an incident from this morning – and Jenn grimaces and changes the channel. The two of them retreat to the hallway, the bathroom, the bedroom.

Jolene paces the hallway, because moving feels infinitely better than standing still, or sitting down. Standing in the shower with hot water easing her back and legs, she can do. Leaning over the back of a chair, with Jenn massaging slow and gentle, she can do that too.

Eating, when Jenn forces toast at her, is more of a challenge. She baulks at the dry toast. Jenn glowers. “Don’t make me pull out the ‘you need to keep up your strength’ line.” She laughs. “Don’t make me sound like my mom.”

So Jolene eats, and miracle of miracles, keeps it down. She even dozes, propped up on pillows, and time slowly stretches from minutes into hours.

There’s no warning, her waters just break while she’s pacing the hallway, a great big warm gush of wet. She’s in a headspace enough that she just blinks wonderingly at it – it’s Beth, heading out of the kitchen holding an apple, who generates the right amount of response.

“ _Moommm!_ ”

It’s the loudest Jolene’s heard the kid be since... well.

Jenn is active-calm. She moves in efficiently, nudges Beth out of the way.

“Contractions getting worse?” she asks, and Jolene shakes her head. Words are hard. Her body is _doing stuff_. Damned if she knows what it is exactly, but it’s clearly requiring all her smarts.

Jenn helps her out of her clothes and helps her into the shower. Jolene leans against the tiles for a long time. Swaying is nearly like walking, and the warm water is so amazing she might cry.

“Hospital says to come in when we’re ready,” Jenn reports through the steam.

Jolene rubs her belly. It’s hard under her hand, working. “Hospital, kid,” she says, seriously. “What do think about that? Is it time?”

The next contraction says _hell yes_. Jenn shuts off the water for her, helps dry her off, and helps her step into her underwear. Jolene finds herself smiling down at the top of Jenn’s head.

“What?” Jenn asks, returning the smile.

“It’s… I don’t know. I love you. Let’s go have this baby.”

Jenn grins and kisses her cheek. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do this. I’ll drive, you push.”

Jolene giggles all the way to the car. Hormones are fucking weird.

~*~

The hospital is a flurry of activity and paperwork and questions. Jenn shields her from all but the most necessary of touch, fills in form after form, and gives answers in a calm, ‘don’t fuck with us’ voice. It gets them the promised bed, some pain relief, and as much quiet as someone can get on a hospital ward.

The world shrinks down to periods of pain, and periods of waiting-for-pain-to-come-back. Jenn talks, jokes, and swears at her encouragingly. They’d checked in at around six. The next time Jolene catches sight of a doctor’s watch, she blinks at it. It says 11:20pm.

“Oh,” she says. “That’s good, right? That means we can go home soon.”

Jenn laughs, and wipes a blessedly cool cloth over Jolene’s face. “A bit longer to go yet, sorry.”

“Christ.” She’s not sure she can do this; she’s so fucking tired already, and it _hurts_ , and whose idea was the whole pregnancy thing, anyway? She’s pretty sure it was at _least_ equal share _his_ and why the fuck does he get out of this agony, just because he’s dead…

“I know,” Jenn murmurs after the next contraction has loosened its grip, and it’s the first time Jolene realises she’s been verbalising. “He totally got himself killed rather than go through this, the jerk.”

There’s no breath left for laughing, but Jolene grins through her panting.

Voices are carrying through the curtain and Jolene glares. If it’s another doctor come to examine her, she might kick them. The curtain’s pushed aside. Jolene stares.

“You… you’re seeing that, too, right?” Jolene says. Jenn nods, wordlessly, her eyes huge.

Pooch is standing in front of them, soaking wet.

It’s too much. She’d call it a contraction, but this pain is all through her chest and far more overwhelming.

“You…” she wheezes, and tries to lunge at him with her free arm. She doesn’t know if she’s trying to hug him or punch him. Pooch -- _Pooch_ \-- stumbles forward into her grasp, catching her free hand in both of his. She’s still clinging to Jenn, so she’s holding onto both of them as the next contraction hits.

When it’s over, she still can’t breathe, can’t look up. She sits frozen, staring at their hands.

“Jake?” Jenn asks above, her voice cracking.

“He’s outside,” Pooch says. “Southside of the building. He’s fine. We’re all --.” Pooch breaks off. “Jensen’s fine.”

“Baby…” Jenn whispers. Jolene can look up at her, it’s safe to look at Jenn. Jenn’s expression is cracked open with shock and disbelief.

“Go, you idiot,” Jolene says. “Punch him for me, okay?” Raising their clasped hands to kiss Jenn’s fingers is entirely instinctive. Jenn’s laugh nearly holds together; she squeezes their hands, and is gone.

It’s just her and Pooch now; the medical staff and the beeping machines fading into the background. She runs her fingers over his callouses, the familiar shape of his palm. She looks up.

Pooch looks like a wreck – exhausted and hurting and the most beautiful thing she’s laid eyes on. She can’t tell if it’s rain or tears on his face, but he’s smiling.

“She take good care of you, baby?” he murmurs.

“You _left_ me,” Jolene growls.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“When all this is over…” The next contraction smashes over her, sweeping away the world. When it passes, she can _smell_ him still, and the sob that breaks free has nothing to do with the labor pains. “When all this is over,” she tries again, wrestling her voice under control and jabbing him in the chest. “You and I are having _words_ , you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pooch says immediately, and she keeps a straight face enough to nod.

“Good.”

She tugs at his raincoat, wanting to get as close as she could before the next contraction hits. There’s a unfamiliar silver chain around his neck. She paws at it, and _there’s_ the ring, glinting in the florescent lights.

“That’s a much better chain,” she says breathlessly, and pulls him in for a kiss.


End file.
